


the warlord and the chicken thief

by Gildedstorm



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, The Dark Age, accidental misgendering, no birds are harmed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 16:42:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29952897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gildedstorm/pseuds/Gildedstorm
Summary: A young thief makes an unfortunate choice in targets, and meets the local Risen. It's the longest night of her life, but perhaps not theworst.
Relationships: Guardian & Ghost
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20





	the warlord and the chicken thief

**Author's Note:**

> this was a silly little idea, and then kept growing, and now we're here!! with sadly no actual chickens on-screen, but who knows how many more words I would have required to manage that...

The village is quiet. Lyss eases herself past the first few houses, quick and surefooted. She already knows her target: not the house itself, built over the bones of an older one, but the coop butted up against it. There’s a ragged heap of cloth and metal there too – a scrap heap, maybe? – and she gives it a wide berth. It would be just her luck to knock something over before she’s even gotten to the prize.

The coop is quiet too, and the chickens don’t stir as she kneels down and opens the latch. She shoots one last look over her shoulder, just in case –

The scrap heap moves. It unfolds and resolves into still ragged clothing on a dark figure she can’t quite make sense of, not until the head lifts and the eyes shine back at her, bright as lamps.

“What,” a mild voice says, “are you doing?”

Only an Exo looks like that, and any Exo is bad news. Some hire themselves out as workers or warriors. They can uproot trees and drag them by hand. They can run all day and night, and not tire. There aren’t supposed to be any of them this side of the river, except –

Oh. Oh _no_.

She’s frozen. Does he have a gun on him? She can’t see one, but then, he could kill her with his bare hands.

“You’re not supposed to be here.” The words slip out without her meaning to say them – it’s why Lyss picked this settlement in the first place, with a warlord who wandered off all the time, and yet is _sitting beside the chicken coop in the middle of the night_.

“That’s right,” he says, sounding surprised that she knows as much as to say it. “I would not be, usually. But the chickens have eggs, and some will be hatching soon. Hardit knows I am interested in such things, and invited me to watch.”

That makes little sense to her, and he must see it on her face. “I asked you a question,” he reminds her. “What are you doing?” His voice is still calm and mild, but there is an edge buried in the hollow echo of it.

He hasn’t killed her yet. Lyss slowly eases herself away from the coop, raising her trembling hands so he can see she’s unarmed. “Please – I was just going to take one or two, that’s all.” He says nothing, and so she keeps going, hoping she’ll hit upon the key to mercy. “You won’t notice just one less. Not if – if there’s more hatching.”

The flicker of light between his jaws as he speaks is unsettling. “It’s late, isn’t it?”

She’s about to open her mouth to keep making more excuses when it becomes clear he’s not speaking to her.

“Early, technically,” something small says, appearing out of thin air. It looks at her with a single blue eye.

“Wake Hardit, please.” The thing – a very small machine? But when it looks at her Lyss feels its gaze, as if it is really _looking_ – bobs in the air and ducks through the window.

“Good morning, Hardit. We are very sorry for the early hour, but we caught an intruder trying to steal your chickens.” Lyss winces.

She can hear muffled voices and movements from within, but it seems like she waits there in the darkness for a tense eternity. The warlord is not even looking at her, but off into the distance somewhere, his lights dimmed.

“So why does a warlord care about chickens?” she asks, because pleading didn’t seem to work. His head turns, just a little.

“Warlord? I have no part of that.”

She has the horrible urge to laugh, and chokes it down.

“You have land, you have power. That makes you a lord, doesn’t it?”

“Land isn’t something you can _have_. I was watching this valley. People pass through. Sometimes they stay.” And that he’s here to fend off other warlords has nothing to do with it, when they come with their guns and machines and whatever else. “As for power,” he repeats. “This power?”

And then there is something dark and shining in his hand. It grows lazily, shedding sparks of something that is not light. Lyss had thought seeing his eyes and mouth glow steadily in the dark was unsettling, but this is worse. She does not want to look at it, but she cannot look away. There is a weight to it, as if it is more real than the ground or the sky, or her.

“This is not power. It is... a pact. A promise.”

“Alright,” she says, mostly to say something. “If you say so.” Her voice sounds thin and frail. Is the air shivering, or is it just her?

The door slams open, and she startles, pressing her back to the side of the house.

Compared to the warlord, Hardit is barely anyone to worry about – a stocky man, hair in half-done braids. He stares helplessly at the glittering doom the warlord is holding – so lightly, like it weighs nothing, has no pull at all – for a long moment before he even glances at her.

The warlord’s eyes brighten. “Sorry to wake you,” he says, voice entirely pleasant. “I’ve never caught a thief before. And it didn’t seem right to not let you know.”

“Yes,” Hardit says blankly, that same helpless scramble for words. “What – why are you doing... that?”

“She asked about my power.” He sounds almost nonplussed at the question.

“I didn’t _mean_ to,” Lyss says, even though it means now both of them are looking at her again. She eases herself further back along the wall, not that distance will be of any help.

Another lurching eternity where she is waiting for something to happen, and even more afraid of tipping it out of her favour. “What are you going to do?” Hardit asks, and Lyss can see the awful shimmer of the energy reflect in the whites of his eyes.

The warlord tilts his head. “That was also why I wanted you awake. What _should_ I do? A thief might not mean harm, but food is a serious thing for all of you. Especially when it still lives and breathes.”

Is her life being weighed against a _bird’s?_ She can’t help making a choked sound, incredulous.

Hardit says something she can’t quite make out – a curse, or a name? Both? “She stole nothing. You scared her – you _are_ scared, yes?”

Lyss flinches as he raises his voice, even though she can hear the strain in it too. He is hardly at ease about his protector himself. “Yes,” she says, biting down wild, irrational defences. She is getting a chance, and she can’t waste it. “I’ll leave. I – I won’t take anything.” She has barely even gotten a _look_ at the birds, but they would have been a few days’ worth of rich meals. No chance of that now. She would have expected to feel grateful, but without the fear there’s little keeping her upright.

Resentment is easy to cling to, at least. It can keep her walking.

“Oh,” the warlord says, plainly surprised. “That easily?”

“Now please... stop.” Hardit gestures, weakly, at the still slowly growing fistful of light. It yawns around the edges of the warlord’s hand. “Whatever that is.”

“Of course.” He closes his hand and snuffs it out, like a candle. Lyss blinks in the sudden darkness. The air seems to have returned with it. When her eyes adjust, she thinks Hardit is watching her, but she can’t read his expression – or perhaps she’s too shaky for it.

Not that it matters. A few more moments and she can put this place behind her. She thinks of those luminous eyes in the dark boring into her back and her skin prickles up. _Well_ behind her.

“It must be nearly time now. Why don’t you....” Whatever else Hardit says falls into background noise. She’s too jittery – she can’t make out the words. But they make the warlord turn his back on her and walk to the coop. He sits down, back to her.

Impossibly, he stays like that. He sits straight, staring intently inward.

Hardit turns to her now, to say something else, but she’s already off and running.

* * *

By the time the sky is starting to lighten in the east, Lyss’ pace has slowed to a stumbling walk. She had planned to steal the birds, get to a safe spot nearby and sleep, not spend the whole night fleeing in case the warlord decided to change his mind. No extra food, a wasted night – but the settlement is in the distance now, and soon it’ll be safe to stop and rest.

Maybe there’ll be some quiet ruins, no Fallen scrounging around. If she’s really lucky, a camp or two with _real_ people, who don’t open holes in thin air –

Twigs and leaves snap beneath something heavy. She spins so fast that it leaves her breathless.

He looks a little more real in the growing light, but not by much. The metal of him must be very dark, because she can still barely make him out, apart from the stained, simple clothes he’s wearing. No wonder she had taken him for a heap of scraps, in the beginning.

Why has he _followed_ her? She opens her mouth, but her throat is dry. There’s nothing she can think of saying that will change this.

That little machine appears, startling her even more. “It’s alright,” it says, though it probably says whatever the warlord wants it to say. “We’re not here to hurt you.”

Lyss stumbles over the beginnings of words. “Then why –”

His eyes dim. “Raiders come. Every month. Fallen, or humans, or true warlords, who want only what can be taken. We stop them.”

“You... kill them. You would have killed me. For a _bird._ ” Her voice squeaks up, close to breaking.

“Yes,” he says without the slightest pause. “A thief also takes. I did not see much difference. But Hardit has explained some things to me, and I understand better now. He also asked me to tell you that you could take one of the chicks that has hatched, once it has grown.” He says this in the exact same mild tone, so that she is still dwelling on his admission when the rest punches her between the ears.

“...What?”

“You would have to stay close by, until then,” the machine says.

“Or for longer,” says the warlord, who apparently does not see the impossibility of offering this hours after holding her life in his hands. “It is a good valley.”

This feels like a moment made of glass. Surely if she says the wrong thing, it’ll shatter. Too bad she doesn’t know what the right thing is. Her thoughts are moving so sluggishly, caught between fear and exhaustion and plain disbelief.

“You’re... offering me a place to stay.” Maybe if she repeats it, it will make more sense.

“Hardit is,” the warlord says with a patience that makes her want to scream. How can he not admit he’s the one in charge, after catching her and threatening her and tracking her down?

“And you’ll... what? Just leave?”

“You were right,” the machine says. “We aren’t usually in the village. You wouldn’t see us unless there was a need. You could get what you came for, and move on.”

How long since she’s had a chance to stay in one place? How long since –

Lyss forces her thoughts away from useless, charred memories. But it’s a tempting offer if she can ignore who it’s from. She’s never met a warlord before (and never wants to again) but that implicit protection must be powerful. Enough people have come through to want to settle down and live a bit of a better life, for as long as they can.

What if he changes his mind, one day? Turns his powers on them all? Surely they’ve had to have thought of that. How did Hardit come out in the middle of the night to that building pressure and his complete lack of concern and not want to run himself?

“I can’t... I can’t trust you,” she says. “I can’t trust any of you. I don’t know what you want from me, out of all of this –”

“Why would I _want_ anything?” He sounds so completely bewildered that for the first time she truly believes him. This is somehow the worst part of it, and despite every scrap of sense she has shrieking at her not to, Lyss starts to cry; big, ugly sobs that wrench at her lungs and she can’t possibly force down. Finally she is angry again, not even at the warlord but entirely at herself: for not getting far enough away, for not understanding, for being so vulnerable and not being able to _stop_.

Long minutes crawl by before the tears taper off and she can catch her breath a little, flushed and already too tired to continue being furious. It’s easier to be ashamed, though. She hopes the one thing the warlord can’t stand is being bawled at – but no, she wipes her face on her sleeve and dares to look up and he is patiently sitting on the ground, like _she’s_ a chicken now that he’s waiting for.

If he says anything about her crying, she’ll probably cry more. Or run, for all the good that will do.

“Hardit said you are young,” he says instead, and Lyss is already very tired of hearing about the things Hardit has apparently said. She sniffles loudly, which he somehow takes as a cue to continue. “I did not realize that at first. That makes both of us.”

Her brow furrows. That can’t be right. “Your kind live forever,” she says, pausing in wiping at her eyes.

“Yes,” he says, implacable. “But I am very young. It has been – how long, Boon?”

“It’s been three years, eight months, and seventeen days since I found you,” the little machine – Boon, apparently – says, but it’s looking at her, not him.

Three years? Yet he’s already here, watching over people and killing Fallen when any normal person would be a _child_.

She really doesn’t want to think about it, actually.

“You really were telling the truth,” she says instead. “This whole time.”

“Of course,” he says. “I don’t know why I wouldn’t.” Then something strange happens: Boon floats over to him, bumping into his head with a little clang of metal on metal. “What?” he asks, sounding almost plaintive. Almost young.

“It’s more complicated than that,” it says.

“It shouldn’t be.”

“But it is. Just because you know you’re telling the truth doesn’t mean _she_ knows.” He looks back at her as if this hadn’t occurred to him before.

Three years. Maybe it genuinely hasn’t.

Now Lyss has an excuse for dodging his gaze at least, and tries to busy herself with burying her face in her sleeves. Not that this stops him, of course. Nothing seems to do that.

“I am sorry about threatening you,” he says, over her continued wet sniffling. “Will you trust me?”

The answer comes far too quickly. “No.” She braces herself for the anger which has to be beneath that shell of incomprehensible patience, but when she peers out at him again, he just nods as if this is an ordinary, sensible conversation they’re having.

“Will you stay?”

Lyss thinks guiltily of a roof over her head, being warm and dry for once, and of not having to keep moving and hiding. To just _stay_ somewhere, even for a little while....

She also thinks of the quiet, easy focus with which he conjured up that darkly glowing... _thing_ , holding it like a child would a toy. He came after her and is sitting here with that same focus, but not so much ease, now; rather like he’s seeing her for the first time. That’s unsettling enough in its own way. She’d rather not be seen; it leads to more problems in the end.

“Maybe,” she says, and his eyes brighten. Once again she’s reminded of lamps in the dark, signalling something she doesn’t understand. “Right now, I just want to get some rest.”

“Of course. We can lead you back,” Boon offers, true to its name.

The thought of returning aches like a loose tooth. Surely news of this entire mess has spread by now. She’s never stolen something and gone _back_ before. People will judge and pity or blame her, and for once she will have to face it.

But if the warlord vouches for her... that will have to count for something, won’t it? And Hardit had made that offer knowing only a thief and the answering threat. She can’t begin to understand _why_. Maybe it’ll make more sense when she’s less tired and fear-addled, but she doubts it.

“The chickens,” Lyss starts, and immediately regrets it. But she can think of no other safe thing to say, and now she has committed to it. “The ones you were waiting for. Did they, uh... did they hatch already?”

“They did,” he says, and despite the cold echo of his voice, she can hear the sudden enthusiasm ringing through it. He really _does_ like birds. “Six hatched by the time we went to find you. I can describe them for you, if you’d like.”

“No, you – you don’t need to. Really.” She flounders, truly at a loss now, when Boon hovers closer. She leans back, but it only blinks at her.

“You might have heard already,” it says in its quieter buzz. “I’m Boon. And this is Omen.”

“Omen-5,” the warlord corrects, though the number means nothing to her. 

Boon shrugs off the interruption, flicking out the delicately interlocked pieces of its... body? Its shell? She’s never seen such an elaborate machine. “And you are...?”

“Lyss,” she says, numb to the absurdity of introductions after everything else that has happened. It has been a terribly long night.

“This way then, Lyss.”

A long night, but it’s morning now, and she’s neither dead nor on the run despite her every expectation. Taking a deep breath, she turns around and drags her gaze up to the horizon, to the village in the distance and the prickle of guilt waiting there.

“Alright. Let’s go.”


End file.
